The Tree Council along with the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) in Northern Ireland are celebrating hedgerows as part National Hedgerow Week which begins next Monday, May 5 and this year’s theme is the ‘Future of Hedgerows’.
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has described hedges being an incredible asset to farms, providing shelter to livestock, capturing carbon and providing food and shelter for a significant proportion of wildlife.
Senior biodiversity technologist at CAFRE Nicola Warden said:: “National Hedgerow Week is about highlighting the important role hedgerows have in our farmed landscape.
“Working within the biodiversity team at CAFRE, we help the farm team to manage existing hedgerows and plant new ones across the farms.
“Throughout the year, it is important to be considering options for future hedge planting and management.
“An existing hedge could be rejuvenated, or a new hedge could be planted to connect two existing habitats, to provide shelter for livestock or to provide wildlife with a network of living field boundaries where they can find adequate spaces to nest, rest or forage within.”
A recent bird survey carried out across the CAFRE lowland farms found that there are a lot of hedgerow bird species such as blackbirds, wrens and dunnocks using CAFRE hedges to nest or forage in.
CAFRE has been managing existing hedgerows to maximise their biodiversity potential through moving away from an annual cut to a three-year rotational cut on suitable internal hedges.
“This has increased the area available to birds to set up safe nesting sites where the nests can be out of reach of predators,” Warden continued.
“Moving to a three-year rotational cut will also allow the hedge species to produce more flowers during the summer and a lot of berries to feed the bird population throughout the winter period.
“In line with the theme for [National] Hedgerow Week, CAFRE is committed to providing students with the skills and knowledge required to allow them to plant new hedges in the future and manage existing hedges to maximise their biodiversity potential.
“Each year approximately 300m of new hedgerow is established with Level 3 Advanced Technical Extended Diploma students.”
